The next morning, I couldn't wait.
Basil had offered to guide us around the area in a few days, but the Duffy lot in Woodfield was only minutes away, and I'd crossed an ocean to stand on it. Dawn came with me.
We followed a dirt path along the field's edge — and then I saw it. A mid-19th-century ruin beside the path: a collapsed cottage and cow shed, scarred by burn marks.
At the time, I didn't know what I was looking at.
Later, I learned the tragic truth. The local authority had torched the homestead in 1847, during the Famine, for unpaid rent. The man who lived there was Patrick Carr, a neighbor and friend of my great-great-grandfather, Walter. Carr had withheld his rent to pay for passage to America for himself and his family.
And Walter helped him escape.
The field itself was still ahead of us. But that is the next part of the walk, and we'll leave that for next time.
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